Tulsan Sentenced For Embezzling From Florida Bank

Saturday, March 3rd 2007, 10:15 pm

By: News On 6

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- A federal judge sentenced a Tulsa woman to 27 months in prison and ordered her to pay $68,000 in restitution for embezzling $339,000 from a Florida bank, authorities said Friday.

Karen Kay Wasson, 48, pleaded guilty in November to three counts of misapplication of bank funds. U.S. District Judge Claire Eagan ordered the prison terms to run concurrently and she added five years of supervised release for Wasson after she gets out.

Wasson had worked at the Bank of America branch in Wellington, Fla., for 14 years as a senior personal banker and an officer. It was discovered Sept. 29, 2004, that she had cashed a customer's certificate of deposit for $200,000 without the customer's consent, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney David E. O'Meilia's office.

The bank investigated and found that Wasson had misapplied $339,000 in bank funds by kiting Bank of America's cashier's checks and interoffice clearing account tickets. Authorities believe this went on between Aug. 16-18, 2004.

She hid that she had funneled $60,000 for her own use, $129,612 to Bank of America customer Delories Yin and $150,000 to Bank of America customer Todd Minikus by shuttling funds from one customer's account to cover shortages on the bank's ledger, prosecutors said.

Wasson then took another Bank of America customer's funds to reimburse the first Bank of America customer's accounts or certificates of deposit which she had looted, prosecutors said.